I'm not referring to people who smoke it--using the drug generally
costs about as much as using alcohol. Marijuana is unaffordable for
the rest of America because billions are wasted on misdirected drug
education and distracted law enforcement, and we also fail to tax
the large underground economy that supplies cannabis. On Monday, the
New Jersey legislature passed a bill legalizing marijuana for a
short list of medical uses. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine
says he will sign it into law. This is a positive step, as cannabis
has several unique medical applications. But the debate over medical
marijuana has obscured the larger issue of pot prohibition.

As a psychiatrist, I treat individuals who often suffer from
devastating substance abuse.

Over many years of dealing with my patients' problems, I have come
to realize that we are wasting precious resources on the fight
against marijuana, which more closely resembles legal recreational
drugs than illegal ones. My conscience compels me to support a
comprehensive and nationwide decriminalization of marijuana.

A retired academic who once called for cannabis to be legalised was
appointed yesterday as the Government's new adviser on the harm
caused by drugs.

Les Iversen, a former pharmacology professor at the University of
Oxford, was made interim chairman of the Advisory Council on the
Misuse of Drugs. He replaces Professor David Nutt, who was sacked
for criticising the Government's decision to reclassify cannabis as
a Class B substance.

After the Home Office announced his appointment it emerged that in a
2003 lecture Professor Iversen said: "There have been no deaths to
date caused by use of cannabis. Cannabis should be legalised, not
just decriminalised, because it is comparatively less dangerous than
legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco."

In an article in 2003 he wrote that cannabis had been incorrectly
classified for nearly 50 years as a dangerous drug and that it was
one of the "safer" recreational drugs.

Questioned about his remarks yesterday, Professor Iversen said that
he no longer held the same views. He said during an interview on BBC
Radio 5: "I don't remember saying that. It's certainly not my
position now.

"We have now to confront the more potent forms of cannabis. We have
the new evidence that arose since 2003 linking cannabis to
psychiatric illness. I think it's quite free for a scientist to
change his mind when faced with new facts."

The voter-approved initiative that took effect in November 2008
requires police to give the lowest enforcement priority to people at
least 21 years old who grow, possess or smoke marijuana on private
property. Possession is capped at 24 plants or 24 ounces of
processed pot.

The Peaceful Sky Alliance, previously known as Project Peaceful Sky,
pushed for the legislation that passed by nearly a 10,000-vote
margin.

But police, citing overriding state and federal anti-pot laws, have
continued to conduct marijuana raids. They arrested 197 people for
pot offenses during the first five months of last year, according to
Police Department statistics that the law requires be compiled every
six months.

The enforcement activities have generated complaints that police are
violating the law. Some of the allegations have been filed with the
nine-member Police Commission, which last month postponed acting on
two in hopes of getting the County Council to clarify the law.

After all, sharing a stage with Cheech and Chong and calling for
loosening drug laws isn't usually in the campaign playbook of a
sitting congressman.

Cohen, a two-term Democrat from Memphis, didn't seem to care
Wednesday night as he headlined the pro-legalization Marijuana
Policy Project's 15th annual gala, where the famed stoner comedy duo
of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong won a lifetime "trailblazer" award
for helping push marijuana use into the mainstream.

"Most of my colleagues didn't want to be here and aren't here. Maybe
that says something about my political judgment," Cohen joked to a
few hundred people at the $250-per-plate dinner, where sponsors
displayed pot "vaporizers" and hemp clothing.

A longtime advocate for legalizing medical marijuana for people with
chronic illnesses, Cohen also argues that the government is wasting
billions of dollars and wrecking people's lives by cracking down on
petty drug offenses.

Is the U.S. Supreme Court going to undo its own recent decision on
the need for defendants to be able to challenge forensics experts?
It looks possible. A Kansas lawmaker has found an substance marketed
as incense that he would like to ban. And, a story about a
responsible city official in Missouri, contrasted with another story
about irresponsible town leadership in Indiana.

It was just a little more than six months ago that the Supreme Court
decided that defendants must have the opportunity to challenge those
who prepare forensic reports before they are admitted into evidence.
So Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote that opinion, wanted to know
why his colleagues were debating it once again Monday.

"Why is this case here, except as an opportunity to upset
Melendez-Diaz?" Scalia thundered, referring to the opinion the court
rendered at the end of its term last June.

That is exactly what 26 states and the District of Columbia want the
court to do, saying the ruling imposes a debilitating procedural and
financial requirement on prosecutors. There is at least a
theoretical possibility that the 5 to 4 decision will not stand.
Now-retired Justice David H. Souter was part of the majority, and he
has been replaced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former prosecutor
the states hope will be more receptive to their arguments.

So Sotomayor, the last to vote when justices meet in their private
conferences to discuss cases, was at the forefront of Monday's
arguments. She and Scalia dominated questioning, but Sotomayor gave
no indication she was ready to overturn the court's earlier
decision. She seemed more interested in finding a way to implement
the decision in a way that helps prosecutors without offending the
Constitution's guarantee that the accused be able to question those
who testify against them.

A Kansas lawmaker on Monday will announce his plans for legislation
that would ban incense that some say produce a marijuana-like high
when smoked.

Rep. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, said in a Sunday news release he will
introduce a bill this session that would "address concerns regarding
the use of unregulated synthetic drugs in Kansas, in particular two
found in a smoke-able herbal product known as K2."

"The two chemicals named JWH-018 and JWH-073 are very similar to
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical in marijuana that gives a
user his high," the release said.

Olson will discuss his proposal during a Monday news conference at
the Statehouse.

The products are currently legal in the state and sold in a variety
of blends that deliver a flowery aroma when burned.

MADISON, Ind. - The high school girlfriends weren't known as
troublemakers. One was a cheerleader, another a soccer player and
the third grew up working on her family's farm.

But the Madison Consolidated High School seniors found themselves
shivering on a winter night three years ago in a deserted church
parking lot, surrounded by police, being questioned about drugs -
and then strip searched.

"We were all so scared," one of them, Kristy Lessley, said in the
first interview the women have granted since the incident Jan. 19,
2007. "We just froze."

The fear and embarrassment, however, soon turned to anger for
Lessley and her friends, Kara Rhodehamel and Kayla Messer, who sued
the city of Madison, former Mayor Albert Huntington, former City
Attorney Robert Barlow, former Police Chief Robert Wolf, City
Councilman James Lee and four police officers, claiming they were
illegally strip-searched and confined.

Madison police have publicly denied any wrongdoing, but the
individual defendants declined to comment except for Wolf, who has
an unlisted phone number and could not be reached.

Current City Attorney Jason Pattison referred questions about the
case to Timothy Born of Evansville, the lead counsel enlisted by the
city's insurance company. Born did not respond to several e-mail and
phone messages.

The case, pending in U.S. District Court in New Albany, was later
expanded to include accusations that Wolf and others knowingly
withheld key documents, destroyed evidence of police misconduct and
generally stonewalled to protect themselves and officers.

Those claims prompted a federal judge to twice sanction and fine the
defendant city and police representatives for interfering with
discovery- penalties that Indiana University law professor Alex
Tanford said are uncommon in such cases.

The New York Times Magazine carried an interesting story on problems
with chronic parole violators and their contribution to the prison
crisis. Elsewhere, the drug war rolls on with as much success as
ever. In Oklahoma, laws that force citizens show ID to get cold
medicine from pharmacies doesn't seem to be working out too well; in
Texas, signs that Mexican cartels are increasing their presence; and
a story out of Georgia fondly describing a drug dog makes one wonder
why journalists don't treat victims of drug war injustice with as
much reverence.

Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jan 2010Source: New York Times Magazine (NY)
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Author: Jeffrey Rosen

IN 2004, STEVEN ALM, a state trial judge in Hawaii, was frustrated
with the cases on his docket.

Nearly half of the people appearing before him were convicted
offenders with drug problems who had been sentenced to probation
rather than prison and then repeatedly violated the terms of that
probation by missing appointments or testing positive for drugs.

Whether out of neglect or leniency, probation officers would tend to
overlook a probationer's first 5 or 10 violations, giving the
offender the impression that he could ignore the rules.

But eventually, the officers would get fed up and recommend that Alm
revoke probation and send the offender to jail to serve out his
sentence.

That struck Alm as too harsh, but the alternative -- winking at
probation violations -- struck him as too soft. "I thought, This is
crazy, this is a crazy way to change people's behavior," he told me
recently.

So Alm decided to try something different.

[snip]

Judge Alm's story is an example of a new approach to keeping people
out of prison that is being championed by some of the most
innovative scholars studying deterrence today.

At its core, the approach focuses on establishing the legitimacy of
the criminal-justice system in the eyes of those who have run afoul
of it or are likely to. Promising less crime and less punishment,
this approach includes elements that should appeal to liberals (it
doesn't rely on draconian prison sentences) and to conservatives (it
stresses individual choice and moral accountability). But at a time
when the size of the U.S. prison population is increasingly seen as
unsustainable for both budgetary and moral reasons -- the United
States represents 5 percent of the world's population and nearly 25
percent of the world's prison population -- the fact that this
approach seems to work may be its biggest draw.

The HOPE program, if widely adopted as a model for probation and
parole reform, could make a surprisingly large contribution to
reducing the prison population. In many states, the majority of
prison admissions come not from arrests for new crimes, as you might
think, but from probation and parole violations. Nationwide, roughly
two-thirds of parolees fail to complete parole successfully. Todd
Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New
York, estimates that by eliminating imprisonment across the nation
for technical parole violations, reducing the length of parole
supervision and ratcheting back prison sentences to their 1988
levels, the United States could reduce its prison population by 50
percent.

No one would have wanted Balmer Valencia Bernabe for a neighbor if
they had known how he earned a living. And no one did know until
6:30 a.m. on Oct. 21.

Ovella Thompson awakened that Wednesday morning to the sound of
federal agents breaking down the door at a creme-colored brick home
across the street. Their search warrant alleged that Bernabe, an
illegal Mexican immigrant, used the Garland "stash house" near Lake
Ray Hubbard to store methamphetamine, vehicles, cash and ledgers
documenting his business dealings.

Twenty miles away, at approximately the same minute, a young father
named Rafael awakened in his Love Field-area home and pulled back
the curtains to watch federal agents bust into a house across the
street and arrest Bernabe. "You could hear the cops screaming,"
recalled Rafael, who asked that his last name not be used. "Who
could have known? He and his wife have kids. He looked like a normal
guy."

Bernabe, at age 34, is anything but a normal guy.

Although he has pleaded not guilty to drug charges, federal
investigators say he exemplifies how Mexican drug cartels have
extended their operations to the retail level in the United States.

ADDU Says Drug Dogs Have A Significant Impact On The Work The Drug
Unit Does.

ALBANY Coco and Ross are two of Albany Dougherty Drug Unit's hardest
working agents. Not only are they reliable, team oriented, and
dedicated, they both have a nose for drugs not to mention four paws
and shiny coat. Victor Camp and Shirley Adams know the importance of
their hairy partners, Coco and Ross, and the sometimes unbelievable
work they do for the drug unit. Camp, whose partner is five-year-old
Coco, said the black shepherd is always excited and eager to work.
"She's just like a human partner," he said. "She rides with me and we
talk."

Camp demonstrated how Coco signals for drugs during an interview with
The Herald in which the black shepherd signaled to varying amounts of
methamphetamine hidden among ADDU's parking lot. Coco waited patiently
as Camp hid meth in various places and when given the signal to begin
work she immediately set out to find the drugs with much tail-wagging
and speed. Adams, who was also at the demonstration, said a person
could tell the bond and trust between a handler and a dog by the dog's
reaction.

"They have a close bond," she said of Camp and Coco. "He doesn't even
have to use a leash (to guide her). You know the partnership is
working when the dog can block any outside stimuli and focus on the
job they are being asked to do." Adams said that both dogs have
different personalities, much like their owners. "Ross is a more
aggressive dog," she said.

"He is very protective of me." Adams said that the longer a dog is
with their handler the more protective they become. "You build that
bond with them and eventually they become your family," she said.
Adams said Ross, a Czech shepherd, has come to know various officers
voices on ADDU's radios. "He can hear the tone of someone's voice and
know who it is and if they are excited he gets excited.

Have you ever noticed that prohibitionists who make the claim that
the tax revenue and savings generated by cannabis regulation would be
more than offset by the increased social and public health costs
associated with cannabis use have typically very little understanding
of public health and economics? For example, none of them seem to
consider that cannabis is an economic substitute for alcohol.

A bill that would legalize, regulate and tax cannabis like alcohol in
California has passed a public safety committee, but not without the
usual misinformed resistance and ironic allegations that legislators
are acting hastily.

New Jersey is poised to become the 14th state to regulate cannabis
for medicinal purposes after the state's legislature passed a bill
this week.

Meanwhile, the stupidity of cannabis prohibition continues to be
demonstrated, ad nauseam, in the press, for anyone who cares to
notice. Imagine what the repetition is like for those of us at
the Media Awareness Project.

Marijuana legalization is a hot topic in California. Currently, there
are four ballot initiatives being circulated for signatures and one
Assembly bill (AB 390) being considered that propose to legalize
marijuana use for those 21 and older.

Marijuana legalization would have tremendous negative impacts on our
society. First, the proposed revenue from taxes is mush less than the
potential cost of the resulting substance abuse impacts. Second, the
increased access would increase the use by, and availability to,
youth. Finally, and most important, are the health and addiction
problems that marijuana has been proven to cause.

Robert Ingenito, chief of research and statistics for the state Board
of Equalization, hypothetically determined that the total revenue from
a proposed tax of $50 per ounce of marijuana could potentially be up
to $1.4 billion. But Ingenito stated, "I would like to stress the
uncertainty, considerable uncertainty, surrounding the assumptions we
had to make." Even if these assumptions were true, we have to take
into account the social costs that regulating marijuana would incur.

For comparison, in 2005 the state of California collected $1.4 billion
($38.69 per capita) in taxes on alcohol and tobacco sales combined,
but at the same time spent $19.9 billion ($545.09 per capita) on costs
related to substance abuse, including criminal justice, education,
mental health, public safety and prevention services. In other words,
for every $1 collected in alcohol and tobacco taxes, $13.80 was spent
on costs related to substance abuse. You don't have to be a genius to
conclude that this investment does not sound like a good financial
decision.

In a historic vote, a panel of California lawmakers Tuesday approved
legislation to tax and regulate marijuana sales similar to how alcohol
is sold.

But even while celebrating its passage, supporters of the bill
acknowledged it would not become law this year.

Still, Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy
Alliance, a pro-legalization group, called the vote the beginning of
the end for marijuana prohibition in the country.

"This is not only the first time any legislative body in the nation
has formally addressed ending decades of failed marijuana prohibition,
but also actually voted to end it," he said.

The Assembly's public safety committee passed the bill 4-3 on Tuesday.

The committee's vice chairman, Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills,
called the legislation one of the worst bills he has seen the
committee pass.

"It is astonishing in this day and age we could pass something this
bad. It is a good sign of how far liberal this Legislature has
become," he said.

He blamed liberal members of the committee - four Bay Area Democrats -
- for the bill's advancement.

[snip]

Rather than generating revenue, Hagman said it would cost the state
through increased health care expenses and the costs of combatting
what he said was an inevitable black market for drugs.

"I don't think we have all thought through the consequences of this
legislation," he said.

Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, agreed.

"The suggestion that we should take illegal activities and make them
legal for the purposes of attaching fees and penalties so the state
can make more money is absurd," he said. "At what point do we legalize
prostitution because it has fundraising potential?"

Pubdate: Tue, 12 Jan 2010Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A1, Front Page, New York edition
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Author: David Kocieniewski

Both Houses Pass Bill

TRENTON -- The New Jersey Legislature approved a measure on Monday
that would make the state the 14th in the nation, but one of the few
on the East Coast, to legalize the use of marijuana to help patients
with chronic illnesses.

The measure -- which would allow patients diagnosed with severe
illnesses like cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig's disease, muscular dystrophy
and multiple sclerosis to have access to marijuana grown and
distributed through state-monitored dispensaries -- was passed by the
General Assembly and State Senate on the final day of the legislative
session.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving
office next Tuesday. Supporters said that within nine months, patients
with a prescription for marijuana from their doctors should be able to
obtain it at one of six locations.

"It's nice to finally see a day when democracy helps heal people,"
said Charles Kwiatkowski, 38, one of dozens of patients who rallied at
the State House before the vote and broke into applause when the
lawmakers approved the measure.

Mr. Kwiatkowski, of Hazlet, N.J., who has multiple sclerosis, said his
doctors have recommended marijuana to treat neuralgia, which causes
him to lose the feeling and the use of his right arm and shoulders.
"The M.S. Society has shown that this drug will help slow the
progression of my disease. Why would I want to use anything else?"

The bill's approval, which comes after years of lobbying by patients'
rights groups and advocates of less restrictive drug laws, was nearly
derailed at the 11th hour as some Democratic lawmakers wavered and
Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie, a Republican, went to the
State House and expressed reservations about it.

In the end, however, it passed by comfortable margins in both houses:
48-14 in the General Assembly and 25-13 in the State Senate.

Case in point: Charlie Castillo was born in Canada, the son of Maltese
immigrants. The family came to Detroit when he was 1 year old and
since then Castillo has spent his entire life in the metro area.

Castillo, 54, was as American as they come. He spent 33 years working
in the factories of General Motors. He bought a little house in the
suburbs and raised three children there. He also was convicted a
decade ago for growing two pot plants in his yard and possessing a
quarter-pound of pot in his house. Both felonies.

Castillo is not an American, technically. He never bothered to apply
for citizenship and so lived his life as a permanent resident alien.
According to immigration law, Castillo's marijuana convictions make
him akin to a narcotics trafficker. And narcotics traffickers are
supposed to be deported.

But Immigration agents never bothered with Castillo because Castillo
was small fry. Immigration authorities do not bother with a lot of
people in the United States. There are approximately 12 million
illegal immigrants living in the United States, according to a 2008
study by the Pew Research Center.

And in many big cities like Los Angeles, the police are prohibited
from contacting immigration officials no matter how heinous a crime
the person commits even if it is known to local authorities that the
person is in the country illegally.

For the marijuana charges, Castillo was allowed [to] pay fines, told
to keep his nose clean and returned to his ranch house in St. Clair
Shores.

According to Reuters, an important "official at the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security" wrote a report warning that a "clandestine
fleet" of aircraft which "likely" includes a few 727s are (or might
be, at least) "flying drugs" from South America to locations in
Africa. How do we know this is so? Why, "officials say", that's how!
What is more alarming is that factions of al-Qaeda "are believed to
be" nearby. But, we're not too sure after all, because the
(anonymous) "U.S. official who wrote the report for Homeland
Security said the al-Qaeda connection was unclear at the time."

Human Rights Watch last week called on the Chinese government to
immediately shut what are euphemistically called "drug
rehabilitation centers" but in reality are forced labor
concentration camps. The centers are "de facto penal colonies where
inmates are sent to factories and farms, fed substandard food and
denied basic medical care". (This is in stark contrast to the humane
treatment given to U.S. drug inmates who are sent to prison
factories and farms, fed substandard food and denied basic medical
care.) "The basic concept is inhumane and flawed," said Human Rights
Watch spokesman Dr. Joseph Amon.

A new anti-drug web site for kids created by Health Canada, links to
U.S. government prohibition web sites in a move seen as yet another
attempt by the extreme right-wing Harper regime to pander to U.S.
prohibitionists. "Our anti-drug policy has become more
propagandistic than the previous one under the Liberals, and it's
become more punitive," said Eugene Oscapella, drug policy professor
at the University of Ottawa. "It's about ideology, it's about what
policies we can bring in, to go ahead and get votes."

And finally, from New Zealand, a wonderful model for reform that
deserves emulation everywhere. It is called, "live like it's legal."
Trailblazing reformers "live like [cannabis] is legal" and go about
their lives as normal citizens. This strategy was revealed in the
wake of media exposure of cannabis clubs in Auckland New Zealand
which are set to spread across the nation. "We have demand from
virtually every city in the country," admitted one club owner. "We
wish to legalise cannabis, but we also wish to live like it's
legal."

In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called
"the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of
aircraft since 9/11."

The document warned a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was
regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air
route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled
by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other
are some of West Africa's most unstable countries.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored,
and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in
several countries describe as a global security threat.

The clandestine fleet has grown to include twin-engine turboprops,
executive jets and retired Boeing 727s that are flying multi-ton
loads of cocaine and possibly weapons to an area in Africa where
factions of al-Qaeda are believed to be facilitating the smuggling
of drugs to Europe, the officials say.

[snip]

Alexandre Schmidt, regional representative for West and Central
Africa for the UN Office on Drugs &Crime, said in Dakar this week
the aviation network has expanded in the past 12 months and now
likely includes several Boeing 727 aircraft.

[snip]

The U.S. official who wrote the report for Homeland Security said
the al-Qaeda connection was unclear at the time. He is a
counter-narcotics aviation expert who asked to remain anonymous as
he is not authorized to speak on the record. He said he was dismayed
by the lack of attention to the matter since he wrote the report.

Although she said it was her first time smoking the drug, Fu, 41,
was sent to one of China's compulsory drug rehabilitation centres.
The minimum stay is two years, and life is an unremitting gauntlet
of physical abuse and forced labour without any drug treatment,
according to former inmates and substance abuse professionals. "It
was a hell I'm still trying to recover from," she said.

According to the United Nations, up to half a million Chinese
citizens are held at these centres at any given time. Detentions are
meted out by the police without trial.

Now international human rights activists are stepping up opposition
to the centres.

Created in 2008 as part of a reform effort to grapple
with the country's growing narcotics problem, the
centres have become de facto penal colonies where
inmates are sent to factories and farms, fed
substandard food and denied basic medical care, lawyers
and drugs, experts have claimed.

"They call them detoxification centres, but everyone knows that
detox takes a few days, not two years," said Joseph Amon, an
epidemiologist with Human Rights Watch in New York. "The basic
concept is inhumane and flawed."

Last week Human Rights Watch issued a report on the drug
rehabilitation system that replaced the Communist Party's previous
approach of sending addicts to labour camps, where they would toil
alongside thieves, prostitutes and political dissidents.

The report, Where Darkness Knows No Limits, calls on the government
to immediately shut the centres.

Questions are being raised after Health Canada's new anti-drug
website for youth included links to a similar campaign being run in
the US. Health Canada says it had no choice but to link to several
American sources on its new youth anti-drug website as no applicable
Canadian sources existed. However, others see it as the government
moving Canadian policy more in line with its southern neighbour.

[snip]

One expert, however, sees the links as a telltale sign the
government is attempting to beef up the credibility of its national
anti-drug campaign in order to resonate with voters who approve of
the traditionally American war on drugs.

"Our anti-drug policy has become more propagandistic than the
previous one under the Liberals, and it's become more punitive,"
said University of Ottawa drug policy professor Eugene Oscapella.
"It's about ideology, it's about what policies we can bring in, to
go ahead and get votes."

Mr. Oscapella, a founding member of the reform group Canadian
Foundation For Drug Policy, noted the shift is "ironic" considering
the Obama administration's approach to drug policy differs
significantly from the Bush administration's zero-tolerance
approach.

[snip]

"For years, the excuse Canadians used for not making our drug
policies less punitive was that the Americans wouldn't allow us. Now
there's quite strong evidence that the United States is beginning to
moderate its stance on drug policy," Mr. Oscapella said. "Obama
himself admitted that he used cocaine and marijuana as a youth. He's
declared the war on drugs to be an utter failure when he was a
Senator a number of years ago."

Cannabis clubs - where users flout the law by meeting to smoke and
buy the Class C drug - may soon open nationwide.

Next month founding members of New Zealand's first cannabis
connoisseurs' club, Auckland's Daktory, plan to meet fellow users
throughout the country to help set-up Daktories in other cities.

"We have demand from virtually every city in the country," Daktory
founder Dakta Green told Sunday News.

"I would expect to see in the next 12 months Daktories in every
major city in this country, every city should have at least one -
2010 is the year people within our culture are demanding changes
throughout the world."

[snip]

That model is planned to be replicated nationwide: "We are a model
for that to happen".

Dad-of-three Green, who is also a NORML - The National Organisation
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - board member wants cannabis
legalised. The Daktory, like NORML's aptly named Mary Jane bus which
is parked there, is a protest vehicle.

"We wish to legalise cannabis, but we also wish to live like it's
legal," Green said.

"So in my home [Green lives at the Daktory] we have a motto 'live
like it's legal'. We just think it's wrong and there's no reason to
continue with serious criminality of something that is as relatively
harmless as cannabis."

And Green and his members certainly 'live like it's legal' at the
Daktory.

Ethan Nadelmann is part of Change.org's Changemakers network,
comprised of leading voices for social change. Change.org asked Mr
Nadelmann to respond to questions to provide context for his work and
the causes he supports.

This is in regard to Worth Richardson's column Wednesday, "The war
on drugs is not working; a new approach is needed."

Richardson succinctly hits the proverbial nail on the head when he
states, "It seems pretty clear America's war on drugs is very
inefficient and not working."

"We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts," was
Richard Nixon's reaction to his national commission's recommendation
that marijuana no longer be a criminal offense, according to Nixon's
Oval Office tapes. The year after Nixon's "all out war" on
marijuana, arrests jumped by over 100,000.

The Nixon White House tapes from 1971-72 demonstrate that the
foundation of the modern war on marijuana was based on Nixonian
prejudice, culture war and misinformation.

The one fundamental difference that has changed dramatically is that
today's users are starting at a considerably younger age. This trend
began escalating correspondingly with Nixon's intensification of
marijuana prohibition as enforced by the then newly formed DEA
(1973).

In 2005, the DEA seized a reported $1.4 billion in drug
trade-related assets and $477 million worth of drugs. However,
according to the White House's Office of Drug Control Policy, the
total value of all of the drugs sold in the U.S. is as much as $64
billion a year, making the DEA's efforts to intercept the flow of
drugs into and within the U.S. less than 1 percent effective.

The notion of losing the war on drugs is only troubling (for some)
until it is realized that waging this "war" is, in effect,
allowing/giving de facto control of substances deemed illicit to
whosoever amasses the wherewithal by whatever means necessary to
produce and/or supply the demand for those substances -- just like
when alcohol prohibition ruled the day circa 1920 to 1933.

After several years, alcohol prohibition became a failure in North
America and elsewhere, as smuggling and bootlegging (rum-running)
became widespread and organized crime took control of the
distribution of alcohol.

As an article in the Wall Street Journal stated, "the biggest step
against Mexican cartels would be to simply legalize their main
product: marijuana, a cash crop that accounts for over half of their
revenue."

DrugSense recognizes John Chase of Palm Harbor, Florida for his five
letters published during December which brings his total that we
know of to 126. You may read his published letters at
http://www.mapinc.org/writers/John+Chase

"I would rather have legalization than have that widespread
government-sanctioned hypocrisy," Attorney General John Suthers said
this week, regarding action the legislature might or might not take on
medical marijuana. But when did it become the attorney general's job
to police "hypocrisy," rather than criminality? If that's his job, he
could charge himself with a violation, based on that statement alone.

Suthers opposes legalization of any kind, even if it would end the
alleged "hypocrisy." He has for as long as I've been paying attention.
He's simply having trouble adapting to new realities, so he wants to
roll the clock back as far and as fast as he can. He has plenty of
colleagues in law enforcement (and a good number of politicians)
willing to join him in that effort. But there's a bit of "hypocrisy"
on that side as well.

Americans can dose themselves and their children with massive
quantities of any pharmacy-bought drug - drugs that are widely abused
and aren't always safe, even with FDA approval. They can sop their
brains with alcohol, as long as they don't get behind the wheel while
under the influence. But if some of them find answers to their
physical or psychological maladies in the "evil weed," Suthers raises
red flags.

Does that constitute "hypocrisy"? It's "inconsistency," or a case of
"cognitive dissonance," at the very least.

Medical marijuana use has been legal in Colorado for nearly a decade,
like it or not. Yet providers and patients have had to operate in the
shadows, fearing that abiding by the state constitution would invite a
federal drug bust. And Suthers, who is sworn to uphold the state
constitution, was content with that arrangement, in which a legal,
constitutionally sanctioned activity was treated as an illegal one. He
was content to have law-abiding Coloradans slink around like common
criminals. Instead of siding with Coloradans, and the Colorado
Constitution, Suthers and his predecessors sided with the George W.
Bush Justice Department, which was also stuck in the "just say no"
era.

Does that constitute "hypocrisy"? Some might say so.

The AG's major complaint about medical marijuana, as I understand it,
is that it's all a giant scam - a backdoor path to legalization. He,
like a lot of law enforcers, look back fondly on a time when the "drug
war" battle lines were boldly drawn in the sand. Use of pot for any
purpose was prohibited. Drug busters were the good guys, marijuana
users the bad. Partial legalization complicates their jobs. It's
disorienting. It goes against deeply ingrained (but largely personal)
prejudices.

Suthers is nostalgic for that simpler time, because it made his job
easier. But policy isn't and shouldn't be made for the convenience of
attorney generals. His personal prejudices about pot and potheads are
largely beside the point. And if he can't adapt to the new situation,
and defend the Colorado Constitution, he should go back to private
practice.

I'm not an advocate for medical marijuana or non-medical marijuana. I
don't doubt there's some abuse of the new system (such as it is) going
on. And, yes, I'm sure some out there view the medical marijuana
movement as a circuitous route to full legalization. But I am an
advocate for freedom, reason, limited government, states' rights and
constitutionalism (both state and federal), which in this case puts me
at odds with an attorney general who (at least on paper) espouses some
of these same values.

Am I guilty of "hypocrisy" for wanting to move forward - for wanting
to deal with the new reality constructively and creatively? Perhaps.
But the far greater hypocrisy is in claiming to uphold the state
constitution with one hand while trying to undermine it with the
other.

Sean Paige serves on the Colorado Springs City Council. He co-chairs a
task force on the medical marijuana issue. This piece originally
appeared at the Denver Post -

"Let me say that the path I did take for a brief period of my life
was not of reckless drug use, hurting others, but it was a path of
quiet rebellion, of a little experimentation of a darker side of my
confusion in a confusing world, lost in the midst of finding my
identity." - Jennifer Capriati

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